 Good afternoon friends, on behalf of Beyond Law CLC, welcome you all to get another engaging session on the perspective of NDPS Act, overview, executive and judicial perspective and challenges. And when in the process of these webinars, we invariably think that we should have a person having the practical perspective. And when we were having a thought process as to how we can have the executive and the judicial perspective, the best course was to have a person while we are going with the judicial perspective, to have a person who has practiced as a lawyer and then practical experiences as a additional district judge to see the other side. And thereafter, while he is teaching and writing books, I think they couldn't have been a better combination of that, which sums it all. And when we are thinking of to have the perspectives of an overview on the executive side, we have the persons who are right in the helm of the affairs and who has worked in the helm of affairs. Amongst us, from the judicial side, we have Mr. Biljinder Sran, who is an additional district judge, and is presently the member faculty of the Chandigarh Judicial Academy. He takes invariably classes for the judicial officers to train them as such. On the executive perspective, we have Mr. B. B. Chandrasekhar, an IPS and who is an ADGP in the Special Task Force, and he has been associated since 2017. That is an experience of more than, around three years, more than three years, and he's a decorated police officer with police medallion, with meritorious service. Mr. R. K. Jaswal is an IPS officer of 1997 police cadre, and he also has an experience of enforcement of law against drugs abuse, and has been working as an Inspector General of Police since April 2017. It shows the amount of their work in tandem, and that is why we are having a much better Punjab on the ratio of the drugs part. And then we have Dr. Kostap Sharma, an IPS officer presently working as IGP Freed Court range, and he has formally been associated as a former Donal Director of the NCB, and he otherwise has done MD in medicine. Therefore, in some circumstances, that the persons who have been in the helm of affairs and are closely associated, the practical knowledge and insights being given in this perspective. And personally, I feel it's one of the rare occasion where the Executive and the Judicial will sit on a common platform, not only here, but also share their views while we are ADGP. Mr. Sra, is it audible because some people are Yes. Am I also audible? No, you're also audible. I can have the view from the ADGP office. So, is it audible? Yes, Mr. Kast, am I also audible? No, you're audible, but from the DGP office, nobody has responded. Okay, rest have said that I'm audible, yes. So, the today's session, we have planned in such a way that as we had discussed that threads as to how it should be actually netted out. We thought that first, let's have a judicial perspective and what could be the lacuna as such. And the police, while who has actually worked on the grounds, they will update us that what insights and what manner they have planning ahead, so that the maintenance of the drugs is there. We'd also see that because it's a common sometimes perspective to the effect that there are false trappings, etc. How about it? And Mr. Sra would give us the rationale for the enactment of the NDPS Act. How far it has achieved the salient features and its perspectives. Mr. Jaiswal would give an MSGE and NDTC survey overview of the drug problem in Punjab and trends of drug trafficking and addiction in Punjab and implementation of the act of the Punjab in recovery, monitoring through 19 point enforcement during the Panademic Times. Mr. Chandrasekhar would give us the insights on the Kada program of Punjab government, EDB strategy, Narsha Mukth Bharat road ahead and Mr. Kaustubh Sharma will give the insights on UNODP both trends of drug trafficking in India in the court mechanism and road ahead. Therefore, the perspective would be as to how the path and substance from what the police would bring us because none wants that should be somebody should be implicated. None wants that the rigors of the rigorous act should be as such to the effect that it affects someone. But the entire intent and the aim because we should have a healthy and prosperous Punjab which we initially used to say that we are all healthy not only in the house but in the minds and the body and the performance in the sports and the academics all go in the right way. Mr. Sahab before requesting you formally I will just see as to whether the DGP you will have to unmute yourself from the office of ADGP Mr. B. Chandrasekhar and Mr. R. K. Jiswala there so that we can have a test run before we formally go with it. Sir kindly unmute yourself the office of ADGP. Yes sir. Sir just a word from your side before we ask formally Mr. Sranthu takeover. Mr. B. Chandrasekhar could we have some insights from you before we formally go over? Mr. B. Chandrasekhar your team is online but we have not been able to hear you. Because instead of Chandrasekhar sir I can see Mr. Jaiswal who is sitting there. By what name sir? I have not been because I was together on one table. Mr. Jaiswal is there so we can but I have told Birjinder that both of them will be sitting together. And Mr. Dr. Koshnep kindly keep this thing in a perfect manner because your photo is not coming forth properly. Slightly on the more side. Your in fact chain is being cut down. Okay. So I just get the idea. Yeah now it's perfect. Now it's perfect. So do we go ahead we're not getting the go ahead from this Dr. Chandrasekhar and Mr. Jaiswal. Hello. Yes. Yes. Hello. Yes sir it's audible. Sir your video is not there. No no no I'm sorry sir I'm B.A. Chandrasekhar you're wrongly muted myself. Okay okay. No we've unmuted the ADGP office also. Mr. Birjinder you can start with the issues I will connect with that office. Thank you so much. Thank you Mr. Vikas and I thank the Forum Beyond Lava CLC for giving me this opportunity to interact on this webinar with such an august gathering. I'm also thankful to Mr. B. Chandrasekhar ADGP STF for gathering the team of speaker at such a short notice on our request so that both the perspective from the executive and the judicial side would come on this platform. Now I shall be taking up the overview of the act. Now the NDPS Act of 1985 came into force on 14 November 1985 prior to the enactment of this act we had three scattered enactment dealing with this area of law that is the Opium Act of 1857, Opium Act of 1858 by 1878 and then dangerous drugs Act of 1930. Now these enactments were found to be very wanting in terms of the international legal framework which was reflected in three broad conventions of 1961, 71 and 88. Now in terms of Article 47 of the Constitution of India which mandates the state to make endeavor to see that the intoxicating drugs are only used for scientific purposes and not for consumption. This act was enacted and it came into force. After its enactment there has been three broad amending act also that is the act of 1989 then of 2001 and followed by the amendment act of 2014. Now if we examine the structure of this act we will find that the substances under the act are broadly divided into three categories that is narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances and controlled drugs, controlled substances. Now in the act we have on Chapter 3 which is the fulcrum of the entire act from Section 8 to Section 14. Section 8 prohibits all sort of activities in the relation to narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances and controlled drugs. These activities are possession, use, consumption, transportation, import, export etc. Now Section 8A which has been added recently by the amendment act of 2014 relates to the provision of ill-gotten wealth from the offences under this act. So it prohibits various activities of conversion of property etc in relation to such offenses. Section 9 onwards till Section 14 these provisions represent the regulatory mechanism under the act. It empowers the central and the state government to authorize either by a license or an authorization or a permit the conduct of any of the activities in relation to these substances. Now Section 8 which I have said is a fulcrum of the entire act. Any contravention of any of the in respect to these activities is made punishable under Chapter 4 of the act from Section 15 till Section 32. Now I will not be touching this penal provision as such. I shall be more focused focusing on the practical aspect of the act. Now initially there was some controversy regarding the psychotropic substances. We have a list of psychotropic substances at the in the schedule at the end of the act and then we have the rules also by Rule 64 along with the schedule attached to these rules there's a list of psychotropic substances which are separately given. The controversy was that if the psychotropic substance which finds mention in the schedule appended to the rule if it is not there in the if it if it is not there in the rules but it is there in the schedule appended to the act whether the provision of the act would be applicable to such psychotropic substances. Now this controversy was settled by the Supreme Court in the case of Sunil Deshpande case whereby the court held that if a psychotropic substance finds mention in the schedule appended to the act then irrespective of the fact whether it finds mention in the schedule appended to the rules it will be covered within the ambit of the act and proprietary provision would be applicable. Therefore in order to do any activity with respect to such substance a permit authorization would be required from the competent authority. The second controversy which pertained to this area was regarding the pure drug content that while computing the drugs or the substances under the act for the purpose of commercial or the small quantity whether the entire drug content is to be seen or taken into consideration or only the pure drug content would be record for these purposes. Now the controversy arose because the courts could not refer to the international conventions on which the entire act has been modeled and the court also could not take into consideration the definition of preparation which is given in the act. Suddenly this controversy arose while considering the interpretation of definition of certain definitions under the act that only the pure drug content is to be record for the purpose of commutation of small or commercial quantity. But now in the Hirasin case the honorable apex court has clarified this controversy where the rationale has been based upon the interpretation of the term preparation used in the act for holding that the entire drug or mixture has to be taken into consideration for reckoning the narcotic drug or psychotropic substances. Then moving on to the main part of the act that is the procedural prescriptions which are most important from the investigation point of view. If we analyze the structure of the act we will notice that these have been classified broadly into two categories that is pre-recovery, procedural prescriptions and post-recovery procedural prescriptions. Now before I elaborate on these I must say that the act seeks to create a balance between the protection of personal liberties of the citizens and the need of the enforcement agencies to effectively effectively deal with the drug trafficking. Now in the pre-recovery procedural prescription we have the mechanism from section 41 to 44 plus section 50 of the act and post-recovery procedural prescription we have the mechanism from section 52 onwards till section 57. Now in pre-recovery from section 41 to section 44 and 50 there is three fourth classification that is conduct of search and seizure on the basis of the warrants or the authorization which we find in section 41 of the act. Then search and seizure proceedings conducted without warrants or authorization in this we have section 42 of the act and then third classification is the search and seizure proceedings conducted in a building enclosed placed or conveyance or search or seizure proceedings conducted in a private place or in a public place or in a or conveyance in transit and the last classification is the search and seizure based upon the personal search of the of the body or any other article which is reflected in section 50 of the act. Now in the first classification that is search and seizure proceedings conducted without without warrants or authorization in section 41 we have two fold authorities under the act one is one is the judicial magistracy and the second is gazeted rank officers of certain departments we will also notice as we move down the legislature has increased the nature of we can say heightened scrutiny on the actions of the officers in order to maintain the balance so far as judicial magistracy is concerned it has been authorized and empowered to issue search and seizure warrants they have to record the reasons whenever it is applied for then the second part of section 41 empowers the gazeted rank officers of certain department to issue the authorization to any supported officer for conducting search and seizure then the second is that where the search and seizure can be conducted without obtaining the warrant from the judicial magistracy or authorization from the gazeted rank officers under 41 this we find in section 42 of the act now here the empowered officers the central and the state government can empower the officers of various departments including the police department now these empowered officers can act under the act into into into fold you can say the bifurcation is there that is during daytime and during nighttime if they want to act during the daytime they can act either on their own in on their own personal information or on the information received from any third party which we call it as sick information it has to be reduced into writing and it has to be sent to the superior official within 72 hours and these are the procedural formalities which needs to be complied with whenever the empowered officer is acting under section 42 in the second part that if he wants to conduct the search and seizure during the nighttime then he has to separately record the reasons that he is not in a position to obtain the search warrants from the judicial magistracy or the authorization from the superior gazeted rank officer and he has to record this reason in writing and then dispatch this to the superior officer and then he can also conduct the search and seizure proceedings during the nighttime then second classification we find is in section 43 vis-a-vis section 42 now 42 relates to the search and seizure proceedings conducted in a building and close placed or conveyance 43 relates to the search and seizure being conducted in a public place and a conveyance in transit now conveyance is used in both the provision but to my mind the difference lies that the conveyance in section 42 relates to the concept of when dwelling which we find in certain western countries and is also there under the international conventions whereas the conveyance which is in transit the same concept is not applicable now the noteworthy feature of section 43 is that the procedural formalities which are there in section 42 those need not be complied when the empowered officer is acting under section 43 of the act so 43 the search and seizure is to be conducted in a public place which is defined in the provision or of a conveyance in transit now in a public place we can say like a hotel all these are defined in the act but the courts have said a room in a hotel will still be a private place so if a search and seizure is to be conducted in a room in a hotel then the formalities of 41 and 42 would still be applicable then next is section 50 of the act now here the distinction lies in the search of the person of the accused or search of any other article earlier there has been certain controversy regarding the meaning of the body or the person of the accused but now it stands settled that personal search means search of the human body plus the clothings and the footwear but not any other article which a person is caring about his own body then second aspect is the nature of the offer being given to the accused but there are I'll make two three points on this aspect one that the offer may be either oral or in writing two in any case it has to be proved by potent evidence by the investigating gentsy or the prosecution it has to be individual and cannot be joined in any situation a consent memo prepared at the spot by the investigating officer is not the compliance of section 50 is not the proper compliance section 50 and therefore the offer should be separately recorded and the reply to that offer should be separately recorded in the memo it should not be mixed up in a single memo which create confusion the offer must be given to the accused or a suspect in very clear terms in the language which he understands and should be fully comprehensible to him and therefore he can make a choice that whether he want his search to be conducted either before the guested of rank officer or before the judicial magistrate now while giving the offer the investigating officer must also keep in mind that he can't give three full choices to the suspect or the accused that he can't tell the accused or suspect that he can either get his search conducted before the guested rank officer or before the judicial magistrate or before himself now this third option is not there in the provision so whenever this third option is there recorded in the memo then it appreciates section 50 of the act then next part is what are the common shortcomings in the investigating agency procedure they adopt but they are generally the first difficulty which come across as the preparation of the memos at the spot now moment the investigating officer makes a recovery at the spot he prepares recovery memo personal search memo and then after he dispatch the ruka to the police station for recording of the FIR now extra care should be taken that at the top of the memo they fill in the details of the FIR number etc often a point is raised by the defense that at that point of time the FIR number was not in picture so how come that be recorded in the memos which were prepared initially at this spot so if the FIR number and other details are filled in the memos prepared at this spot then a separate note should be appended that these were filled on later on when when the police official reached the spot bringing the FIR number etc then second part is that which are now discussed section 41 to 50 this should be meticulously followed the reason is that under the act we have reverse burden clauses section 35, 54, 66 35 says that so far as the mental element of the offense is concerned it shall be presumed by the court the only factum which the prosecution needs to bring before the court is the physical recovery or that the person has got connection with the contraband then 54 again raises another presumption in favor of the prosecution that once the physical part that is recovery part is proved by the prosecution then the court shall raise the presumption in favor of the prosecution that accused has committed the offense under the act unless he is able to prove to the contrary. Now here the burden of proof on the accused is of a higher nature unlike the normal cases where the accuse is required to show only a reasonable doubt in the case of the prosecution in order to on the acquittal under the anti-paste cases the accused has to prove his case on the touchstone of preponderous probability so merely by raising a reasonable doubt in the case of prosecution he can't get away from with the offense but the the courts while interpreting this provision have held that so far as the physical part of recovery is concerned it implies that the recovery must be proved in accordance with the provisions of the act meaning thereby that the investigating agency must have followed meticulously the procedural formalities prescribed under the act while effecting search and seizure now if they have not followed these procedural formalities then no presumption intersection 54 can be raised in favor of the prosecution now most of the cases which falters in the courts are only on account of the fact that this procedural format there is a there is a default involving these procedural formalities so therefore the investigating officer needs to be extra careful while conducting search and seizure it has to be conducted in accordance with law law means in accordance with the provisions of the NDPS Act plus CRPC now second part is regarding the controversy that informant will not be the investigating officer which which is a recently a reason because of the judgment of the apex court this also created a lot of confusion but this was done in the case of Mohanlal case but subsequently the supreme court verified that this judgment will have only prospective operation and the cases which were prior to the judgment shall not be affected by this and thereafter this matter has been referred to the larger bench by the supreme court for decision now the genesis of this controversy lies in the fact that what is the meaning of the term investigation does the investigation means a process which will start only on the registration of the FIR or even the proceedings conducted prior to the formal registration of the FIR would also be included in the output of investigation now because of this controversy the matter is still before the apex court now if we consider that the recovery proceedings which are conducted before a formal FIR is registered are also part of the investigation then this then this controversy will not arise but if we segregate these two stages then definitely once the recovery is affected at this spot then a new investigating officer must take over and he must conduct the rest of the proceedings even prior to the judgment of the apex court in some of the states where their honorable high courts had taken this view the state agencies were following this procedure but so far as Punjab was concerned probably here the investigating agency was not following this procedure and the search proceedings being conducted at the spot were taken to be the part of the investigating procedure itself now next aspect is that the investigating officer must understand this fact that whatever statement is reported during the course of investigation by the police is governed by the provisions of CRPC and the evidence act so any statement of the accused which is reported be it confessional or otherwise is hit by section 162 of the CRPC when most of the cases the courts find it difficult to convict the accused I can share one example that the accused is arrested with the contraband he divulges the name that he bought the contraband from so and so person and it was meant to be delivered to so and so persons now let us suppose the investigating agency rope in all the all the three accused now so far as the person from whose position it was recovered yes there is the evidence of recovery but so far as the other two accused were concerned except for this statement recorded during the course of investigation there is no other evidence gathered by the investigating officer which creates the problem for the courts so while recording the statements whatever information is elicited from the accused the investigating agency must gather the connecting or the corroborating or supporting evidence along with this there could be the telephonic conversation there could be certain other pieces of evidence which could implicate the other court used then we have the concept of controlled delivery under the act in order to catch the crime syndicates for whom the big hall of drugs are meant for but I have hardly come across any case where this concept has been utilized by the investigating agencies of controlled deliveries or even they can go for simple process like in case of prevention of corruption act cases in order to catch such kind of culprits the trap case now they hardly adopt these procedures so therefore at the end of the day only the person from whose position or the small fish those are caught and the other who are at the hands of the affairs of such crime syndicates they get away spot free from the ambit of the act then next part is the section 52 a compliance that is preparation of the inventory by the investigating officer now here also you'll find a lot of difficulties now earlier the rule was that at the spot the samples were required to be drawn up by 1989 notification or standing orders by here we have three three standing orders that is standing order of 1989 which was followed by the standing order of 2015 and then we have the judgment of Mohanlal case of the apex court which modified some procedure so as of now the procedure which is followed is that once the recovery is affected at the spot the entire bulk parcel is prepared of the contraband and brought to the officer in charge of the police station now officer in charge is required to prepare the inventory and produce entire thing before the judicial magistrate under 52 a now while preparing the inventory the extra care should be taken that the entire detail of the case property the description everything like a give one example in case of pharmaceutical drugs the investigating officer does not notice the badge number the lot number the manufacturing date and other details which would be quite helpful in doing the sampling part also and further proving the case property also another factor is that in such cases no letter is being sent to the pharmaceutical unit whose name is appearing on the wrappers of these medicines in order to verify that whether these have been manufactured by the same unit or not or are they fake so with the result the connecting link get missing and in the sampling part also if they are of the same lot then only one strip can be taken out as a sample and remaining can be preserved in the bulk case property so all these care must be taken which are as of now more or less missing in the investigating part then next is so for a CFSR form is concerned now it is being filled up before the judicial magistrate so therefore once it is filled it has to be dispatched with a reasonable time along with the represented sample to the laboratory for analysis purpose now I want to highlight one aspect over here in certain cases involving commercial quantity in respect of default bail under section 167 read with section 36 of the this NDPS act a difficulty always arises because of the constraint on the infrastructure part the report from the laboratory does not come up in time and the resultant effect is that they use apply for the default bail now here since the in Punjab the officials are not using any drug testing kit at this spot which could at least verify a primer fisheye the nature of the substance involved in a given situation so the court has to wait for the report of the chemical analysis to find out the nature of the substance recovered whether it is innocuous or it falls within the ambit of the act this can only be found out after the report comes now there is a provision under the act that the investigating Gen C can seek extension of time up to one year in case of offenses involving commercial quantity and offenses into section 19 27 8 etc but here the problem is that the application must be filed well in time before the expiry of 180 days generally it happens that either on the last day or thereafter the application comes without even compliance of the procedural formalities of the act that it is not supported by the separate report of the public prosecutor indicating the reasons why the time is required whether it is for the purpose of investigation so and so forth so this again creates a lot of problem so this needs to be taken care of then comes the recovery of contraband from the premises now so far as position part is concerned the position can be either individual joint constructive symbolic or actual so while preparing the or while doing the investigation the investigating officer needs to understand the these basic concepts of position so in order to establish any of these the connecting evidence must be gathered by the investigating officer in case of an actual physical position there is no problem but let us say if the position is from the premises or a house which is occupied by let us say five or ten family members so therefore in such cases they must be able to gather the circumstantial evidence at the spot in order to establish the occupation of the particular portion of the house or the premises on who on who in whose occupation it is so all these things we should be taken care of then standing instructions the investigating officer needs to take care of the standing instructions while investigating the offense because its non-observance would reflect on the evidentiary value of the testimony of the witnesses now i would like to make the last point regarding the disposal part so far as disposal of drugs is concerned now we have the provision regarding the pretrial disposal of the conveniences as well as all the paraphernalia plus the contraband everything now in this regard earlier we had the notification of 1989 which was followed by the notification of 2007 which was superseded by the notification of 2015 and then we had the judgment of the apex court in Mohanlal case in 2016 now the end result is that after the inventory has been verified under 52 a of the act by the judicial magistrate immediately the bulk parcel would go to the drug disposal committee there is no need for the investigating agency to file a separate application before the court to seek permission for disposing of the contraband under the 89 notification permission was required but as of now after this 2015 notification plus the judgment of the apex court no permission is required therefore the time should not be wasted in filing the application before the courts seeking disposal of this contraband etc. now so far as conveniences is concerned the conveyance cannot be disposed of till the courts have taken the proceeding from section 60 to 63 of the act so their notice is required to be given the owner of the vehicle has the opportunity to show to the court that the vehicle was used without his permission without his knowledge therefore he can save the conveyance from confiscation also so this proceeding summary proceedings are required to be conducted separately now in respect of conveyances I would like to make this point that the investigating agency must find some evidence connecting the vehicle also either with the owner or with the occupier or with the accused so that it is easier for the court to confiscate these conveyances etc then last part is regarding section 67 of the act now 67 empowers the officers of certain departments who call for information record the statement of the witnesses including the accused regarding its evidentiary value we had cleavage of opinion among the apex in the apex court in this regard earlier it was it was it was held by the apex court that even the confessional statement reported by the officer under section 67 of the act it is not hit by section 25 of the evidence act so therefore it is admissible in evidence 25 of the evidence states that any confessional statement made to the police officer is not admissible and cannot be proved against him so the controversy was that whether the officers of the dr i n cp etc they would fall within the ambit of the police officer under section 25 or not reason is that section 53 of the act grants power of officer in charge of the police station to these officers for the for the purpose of investigation but now the controversy has been referred to the larger punch by the apex court in to fancy case and the matter is still pending before the court so as of now this this matter is still before the apex court the last part is retesting of sample now unlike the drugs and cosmetic act the narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances that does not contain any provision for retesting of the sample but despite that the courts have culled out certain grounds on which retesting can be ordered by the court but generally these grounds are the loss of sample in transit the damage of the sample before it is tested so in these circumstances the sample can be retested there can be re-sampling before the court and it could be sent for retesting purpose now the apex court in thanasin case has fixed the time limit of 15 days for retesting purpose earlier there was no time limit so even if this this this time limit would encourage the investigating agencies to dispatch the samples at the shortest possible time at the earliest so that if the sample is damaged or lost or anything happens the same can be re-sampled and sent for retesting purpose so Mr. Vikas I've given the overview of the act. Mr. Sinha I think that was all spot on there couldn't have been a more concise session on this particular aspect while we were discussing before coming on the webinar that is what I had said that the legal aspects etc too broad to be discussed but we have shown why people pouch upon your classes to be heard because you are very concise precise and concise we have unmuted the office of the ADGP we request Mr. Jaiswal to give the insights as to how they are moving forward in state of Punjab and as we had already said that we'll also be taking the Q&A the question and answers can be posted but we know that all the speakers are of immense knowledge but we will be restricting the questions only and only to the perspective of NDPS and all the four speakers have given the consent they will give the insights on the topic in respect of the topic in which they will be speaking over to you Mr. Jaiswal so it's not audible this side I can ask from the other people meanwhile if it's audible so it's not audible people are also writing that Mrs. Raath tell them what they can try is we will meanwhile take the questions I have understood we need not write the audible part they are checking it at their end we can have Mr. We can take certain questions Mr. Vikas we can have Dr. Kostav Kostav? Yes we can unmute him. No we are unmuting him because there are a large number of audience we keep everyone muted otherwise it becomes a disturbance. So you will have to unmute yourself Dr. Kostav. Sir you have again muted ADGP office is again muted itself if you are if you can start speaking we can continue with that try to unmute that or you can try with another connection let's assume we are not audible from this part yes yes Mr. Jaiswal sir sir do you have another connection I think we can connect from that place you can even try from the mobile till you try with the other part. So if you are able to hear then I can go ahead and as Sarasabh was saying meanwhile I can have my question while the other yes we can go ahead okay you know United Nations office on drugs and crime so this is basically the organization along with the international narcotics control bureau which sort of coordinates the international efforts to regulate the supply as well as the overall scenario for availability of the narcotics substances and the psychotropic drugs. So as we discussed India became signatory to three conventions the first was the single convention which brought together all different kinds of bilateral conventions and different things. So this is 1961 convention is the main convention which made anything except for medical and scientific purposes use of any intoxicating substance to be illegal and it put in some kind of stringent laws. So one of the interesting things is that India had been always using cannabis and cannabis used in terms of leaves where when we are saying like bomb is still legal and there are shops which sell bomb and like the excise vents they're also auctioned off in different states. However when we go to the higher potency THC definitely ganja and then hashish which is the resin which is more potent form and the hashish oil those all things are basically strictly illegal. So the only thing differentiates between bang and ganja is the flowering tops which have more tetrahydrocanaminal concentration which is primarily the intoxicating substance. But on the other hand world over cannabinoids have got a lot of interest because our body has cannabinoid receptors and a lot of them have been found to be part of the immune system and regulating our immunity. So countries like Uruguay, Portugal, Canada have started to experiment with opening up some legal cannabis outlets and certain states in United States also do whereas United States has very interestingly a different perspective. The federal law actually sort of prohibits any kind of activities where the states have gone ahead and allowed the outlets to open. Some of them have started in recreational form also but most of them have permitted the medical use of cannabis. So this is sort of a global challenge which is coming up but just to give a perspective at the national level the major problem in India and the world over emanates from the use of opioids. You know 192 million people according to the UNO disease World Drug Report are cannabinoids. Whereas only 52 million that is roughly one fourth of the total global population of drug users is basically opioid users. However in terms of the problem drugs 66 percent of the entire continent's deaths due to drug use happen because of the opioids and 50 percent of the global morbidity so morbidity basically means the disease burden that is there because of drugs is primarily because of the opioids. Now when you compare the situation in India latest survey which came out as Jaswal sir will discuss in detail in 2019 brings out that in India we have 2.1 percent of our population which is dependent or which is using opioids of which the major opioid 1.2 percent out of 2.1 percent is actually heroin and the natural opiate which is opium has gone down significantly the pharmaceutical opioids are the next in line. So India has four times the global use of the opioids and this is the primary drug which is actually affecting the state of Punjab as well as many other states like Haryana, Delhi, Marshall, even Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan to large extent. So there is important thing is that opium is currently on license from 100 years which is part of the ministry of finance. The ministry of finance is the administering authority for NDPS Act. If you see the overall number of cases registered in particular year last year if we take approximately 52,000 total cases were registered under NDPS Act in the country of which 50,000 50,000 50 and half thousand cases were registered by the state governments on it. So and if you see the number of cases of opioids out of these they are hardly 1500 cases relating to the opioids but the major problem we see relates to primarily the position of the opioids, use of opioids, be it synthetic or other things. Now when you see at the NDPS Act 1 kilogram of churus is commercial quantity, 2.5 kilograms of opium is commercial quantity. So here is the basic thing we are focusing our entire energies like 21,000 22,000 cases out of these 50,000 cases 52,000 cases are basically related to recovery of ganja only. And we are hardly 1500 or so cases which are linked with the recovery of the opium and similar kind of products and overall if you see the recovery of heroin has obviously increased over the last five years. Earlier it used to be between 600 to 1200 kilograms for the country. Now it is somewhere around 1000 to 2500 kilograms depending on an year because in 2017 I was investigating a case of a big seizure which the Indian postcard had affected in which in one single case 1500 kilograms of morphine and heroin was trafficked into India. So then the entire gamut of the recovery is definitely changed. So overall if you see the number of recoveries of cannabis, hashish and all these things they are much more in comparison to opioids. Our focus should be on opioids which are more problem trucks. Punjab is primarily getting affected by heroin coming from southwest Asia. In 2010 60% of the country's total opioids or particularly heroin that came into India came via Punjab. And I think this is just significant onslaught of heroin into India still continuing through the Indo-Pac products across the border of Punjab. Recent seizure of 60 kilograms last year, seizure in June of 532 kilograms of heroin. Similarly last year seizure by Punjab, sorry the Delhi police of 350 grams in which Afghan nationals were involved. Recently in January we did a seizure of 200 kilograms of heroin when I was part of the STF and that thing came via high seas across into Gujarat as part of the consignment and one of the chaps who was deported from Australia called Simarjeet Sandu was involved in trafficking it from Gujarat to Punjab. So he managed 300 kilograms, 200 kilograms was lying and when he escaped out he still managed a group and tried to establish another factory at Amritsar which was recovered. So if you see the current trend on the treatment I think we can make out that about five and a half lakh people have got registered in Punjab and even one third of the gram if you think a person who is chronically addicted to it is using. So you can see the volume of the heroin that could be consumed even when it is diluted to say one fifth of the gram depending on the purity levels you can come across phenomenal levels per day of heroin that could be consumed in Punjab. So for even one lakh people you can easily see that approximately 30,000 grams per day of whatever street level heroin could be consumed which is approximately 15-20 kilograms per day of consumption in Punjab so maybe it is more. So this is just sort of broader estimate as to what problems remain. Since I have very limited agenda to speak on so I will not go beyond that and if somebody wants more detail about international or national trends I will be definitely more interested to then speak about it. Basically Punjab is a big consumption state, wheat, pharmaceuticals, wheat, opioids even now cannabis and other products are getting consumed. However we are lucky that the stimulant consumption is pretty low. Stimulants basically do not have any kind of treatment except for counseling and psychosocial interventions whereas for opioids we do have treatment like substitution treatments which can stabilize person and then give an opportunity for the person to come out of the drug problem and try and stabilize and overall leave the prediction part behind. That's all from my side I think. Mr. Vikas, I would like to ask Dr. Kosta regarding the non-implementation of section 64A and 39 of this act which are meant for rehabilitation of the addicts under the act this provisions are seldom invoked and hardly we have come across any case where the prosecuting agency has recommended the case of the accused under either of these two provisions. Yes I think Jaisal has sort of hit the nail on the head but the issue is we have been taking up and personally have been speaking to the department of revenue and the narcotics control bureau. You know when you read 64A it sees whenever an accused is charged. Now I mean as soon as you interpret you know in the judicial terms word charge means that the judiciary has to frame the charge before that you cannot say that the person has been charged. Now if the judiciary comes forward and the summary trial is actually provisioned under I think 37 of the NDPS act it says that the cases particularly of a small quantity and under section 27 which is consumption of drugs on cases can be tried somewhere. So why if the judiciary allows summary trials definitely we can go on the basis of the medical report itself and give a charge sheet and then the judiciary can do a summary trial right on the next day but unless and until now the problem is this we will like 64A to be invoked and to be used because it reduces our burden it reduces judiciary's burden and we know about 30 40 40 percent good 40 percent of the cases being registered in Punjab definitely as small quantities and some opposition of small quantity of drugs can definitely bring a big reduction in the amount of cases which which are put to trial and for whatever reasons and this is definitely an immunity. So 64A or 39 for that sense if the person is charged finally and 39 is more related to judiciary so that's like at the end when the judiciary is still going to sort of perform or becomes convinced it sort of gives an option to the accused okay I mean if you if you wish we will sort of leave you with certain conditions whereas 64A is sort of very clear that it is basically immunity to an accused who's been caught with small quantity but the word charged is actually one which sort of limits us and gives everything in the hand of judiciary rather than being in the hand of police so charged means the judicial magistrate has to frame the charge and then only the things start or the so we have sort of proposed a change that instead of the word charged it should be arrested so if if it is changed because probably when it was framed not much legal sort of deliberation went into it that this sort of problem might arise but you know so what now what now happens is that as soon as the accused goes and he's produced before the magistrate the first thing he goes to the jail he's caught with small quantity normally 10 days week he will usually get a bail and once he's been through that he very well thinks okay let me go and face the trial and maybe I get acquitted and then so so there are then definitely legal matters also the advocates get involved and they say okay I mean the case is weak and will try and pull you out but definitely 64 is a very important provision wherever person is under treatment or volunteers for treatment we can definitely offer under 64 only the word charged there I mean if the judiciary comes forward we can definitely give a charge sheet next day based on the medical report itself and let the FSL report come on later on because it can be summarily tried itself and even a drug detection kit result can definitely aid in such cases at least when the drug is recovered thank you thank you doctor and it's I'll hand over now to Vikas and we was seniors from the stf can take over because we have unmuted mr jiswal uh for his good afternoon so am i are they going to have you on so you are there one mic is uh there are two mics connected in and around that area that's where the voice is equine okay so we need to switch up that switch up that you get the feeling of the mountains using these lockdown times one uh have this so is it fine now I suppose there are two or three more gadgets which have been logged in maybe two people of your office around who have logged in okay mic is equine now it seems to be fine is it fine is it fine is it fine is it fine is it fine is it fine is it fine sir meanwhile we can ask mr chandrashekar to speak you can mean we'll check it out what is the issue now it's fine yes it's fine we can have it yeah so should i continue yes sir yes sir okay so so i will confine to only enforcement part and will give you the background of drug abuse in panjab so as uh you know panjab is in the close proximity of heroin producing golden crescent of pakistan afghanistan and iran and this state also shares almost 553 kilometer international border with the pakistan the question arises why panjab is so vulnerable so there are three four factors uh responsible for the vulnerability of this state the first is the close proximity of indopak border as well as afghanistan and afghanistan you know afghanistan is the biggest producer of heroin uh in the world so it is almost 85 percent heroin production comes from only afghanistan the second thing that is the transit route for supply to other parts of the world and uh panjab has been uh very tried and tested uh traditional uh supply route for all these stuffs third again the major drug cartels they always try to hit only the prosperous states of any country because it's a business model drug it's a very lucrative business models and again panjab is a very prosperous state and and situated on transit routes and the fourth and the most important thing that is the design of isi is a isi module to promote drug trafficking and use money made out of this drug drug things to further fund narco terrorism so it's all against based so again panjab yes so especially in afghanistan in the last couple of years the productions of uh coffee it has really gone up and now it is uh crossing almost 200 million tons more than 200 million tons the route of pakistan based drug smuggling afghanistan pakistan based drug smuggling syndicates run through especially the border districts of panjab that is feroz puth basilka burdas puth but hankot and america and tarantara so this is a very tried and tested routes for the last 30 40 years but in the recent past because of the increased or strict vigil these drug smugglers now they have changed their route and now they are exploring various routes like the sea routes air routes and and part of consignments are also coming from golden triangle sides that is the varma kombodia and the laos sides so in that way not only panjab is vulnerable if we see i mean the recent survey of msje now the entire country has become very vulnerable uh as far as opiate opiate and other uh drugs are concerned so now i'm going to give you a survey report of 2015 it's a 2015 aim survey reports and this survey it was confined to only panjab just to gauge the just the magnitude of the problems opiate problems in the panjab as per the aim survey 2015 there was 2.3 lakh opiate addicts 8.6 lakh harmful opiate drug user out of these opiate addicts 53 percent were heroin user 33 percent opium and opiates and 14 percent was the pharmaceutical opioids the major reason for using drugs the factor major factor for using drugs by the addicts that was the pure influence and the total use of opiates it was almost 80 percent of the total uh drugs uh total drugs abuse again further on the direction of supreme court all india survey it was conducted by msje ministry of social justice and empowerment with the help of nddtc national drug deaddiction treatment centers uh this survey it was conducted in 2018 and the report was published in february 2019 this survey is very important because this survey it was conducted on a larger scale and the sample size it was very big in that survey panjab ranked second with the 7.2 lakh people who need help for opiate related problems after utha buddhas so in that way panjab is second in terms of using opiates again panjab ranked second among states with highest prevalence of cannabis use after utha buddhas panjab was third state with two lakh people who need help for sedative related problems after utha buddhas and marastra and panjab is second among states after utha buddhas they are higher number of twid users are estimated people uh injecting uh uh people who inject in drugs these as far as action against drug traffickers is concerned in 2017 april a special task force was constituted in panjab to deal with these drug problems and after the creation of a special task force in the whole in the entire states we have registered almost 37 000 ndps act cases so far and more than 46 000 persons arrested and as far as recovery of heroin is concerned it's uh almost 1481 kg heroin has been recovered so far action against drug traffickers with regard to for feature of the legal property is concerned so far we have four fitted almost 180 crore values properties of the drug traffickers the conviction rate in ndps act cases is 64 percent in this pandemic period action against drug traffickers continued with compliance of all the guidelines and precautions to ensure safety of the personnel issued by the central and state government from time to time in this pandemic period we have registered 1858 to 1852 ndps act cases and arrested 2869 persons and 164 kg heroin recovers along with other drugs like charras opium opihas ganja and pills and capsules after the creation of stf stf has issued various guidelines to the district's police for effective enforcement and also to ensure effective action and break the supply chain of the drugs especially i mean like a devising area specific strategy we have also circulated circulated 19 point performers regarding enforcement of ndps act to review the day to day work of district police against drug abuse for feature of illegal properties we have also issued directions to start initiate process of forfeiting of illegal property acquired by drug traffickers and also ensure in each and every cases the forwarded backward linkages of the cases also issue directions regarding action against police officers or any government servants servant collusion inefficiency ineffectiveness in the drive against drugs so these were the steps taken by stf as far as the future roadmap is concerned we are in a process to finalize few things and the also stf has sent a proposal for reduction of commercial quantity of quantity of heroin from 250 grams to 25 grams and this proposal is under the constitution of government of India you know the the quantity the heroin the commercial quantity of heroin at this point of time is 250 grams that is very high so it was felt that this commercial quantity uh cap it should be reduced to 25 grams in addition we are also making a proposal to create a vertical separate vertical drug the addiction division in the health department to exclusively monitor all aspects of enforcement deaddiction and prevention strategy in the state so my points are almost covered so any questions is welcome thank you sir for the insights and the data given by you it will go well within the public and the participants who are there we will ask Mr Chandrasekhar I'll be joining from the same iPad yes sir and in law sometimes we say this is the camouflage yes sir yeah should I start am I already yes sir yes sir we would just like to know how that uh we actually achieve the target of nashamukh Bharat and not especially of Punjab we shouldn't be known as Urtapajab yeah I'll briefly touch upon the panya bottle of how to tackle this drug menace after the stf was formed in 2017 the Punjab government has started what is called the comprehensive action against drug abuse program the comprehensive action against drug abuse program it coordinates the efforts of all the departments involved in the effort uh under this kada program the government has devised what is called the EDP strategy it is a three prong strategy E stands for enforcement D stands for deaddiction P stands for prevention as we all know mere enforcement is not going to control this drug problem we cut off the supply chain by enforcement but as long as the demand chain is still there the supply chain will continue to exist so to control the demand aspect of this drug trafficking the deaddiction as well as the prevention strategies have been developed enforcement aspect is what the enforcement agencies usually do we recover drugs take legal action against the drug traffickers on this enforcement aspect aspect Mr. Jaiswal has briefed you in detail I'll touch upon what are the deaddiction and the prevention strategies of the Punjab Congress as per the survey conducted by various agencies we have lacks of drug addicts in Punjab who need treatment when in 2017 this concept was developed we had if you to be precise about 32 deaddiction centers and about 12 rehab centers in Punjab and including the private hospitals private deaddiction and rehab centers there were about 1700 beds available and the treatment was basically inpatient treatment and we had about based on the 2015 survey of all Indian Institute of Medical Sciences we had about 12 lakh of drug addicts at that point of time a treatment of 12 act addicts with such few beds was not possible so a new model was developed based on outpatient treatment what we call the outpatient opioid assisted treatment why this opioid stress is because more than 80% of the drug addicts were hooked on to opium based drugs opioids as well as opium based drugs so this deaddiction model is basically aimed at treating the drug addicts by giving them treatment and this outpatient treatment the old clinics old centers wherever they have been set up in Punjab we have at present 199 old clinics functioning in Pajah and free treatment is given to all the drug addicts you would be very glad to know that out of the estimated 7.2 lakh people of the survey which is more than 565,000 people are already under treatment in Pajah so this is a very big kind of milestone for us that we are trying to get everybody who is an addict or who is it to taking drugs the Punjab government is providing free treatment and free treatment by giving them Biprenorphine and elaxon combination to wean them away from the drug addiction and then provide free treatment at the nearest possible place from where they want to go and where they live so this is the deaddiction model I'll give you the basic figures of the deaddiction treatment we have as of now 35 deaddiction centers 20 rehabilitation centers 128 private deaddiction centers 43 private rehab centers and 199 old clinics and the total patients registered in all these treatment centers are 565,707 as on 27th of July and so this outpatient model is the first of its kind in the whole country and which has been reviewed by the AIMS doctors also and they said this is the best model to take treatment to write down to the village level so this is the deaddiction model of Punjab government which has been a very resounding success now I come to the prevention aspect deaddiction aspect is one part if the demand gets reduced from the addict side then the supply also will correspondingly get reduced the third aspect of this EDP strategy is the prevention part if we prevent new persons from getting addicted to these drugs the demand will also drop so under this prevention part there are again three aspects there are three schemes which have been lodged by the Punjab government first one is called the DAPO scheme DAPO program DAPO stands for drug abuse prevention officer I'll tell you what this DAPO program after I touch upon the other two the second program is the buddy program the third program is the awareness campaign program the DAPO program is basically it is a community participation program where any adult member of the society can volunteer to work in his own mohalla or in his own ward and contribute towards controlling the drug mix so it is an opportunity for every citizen to contribute not just the government effort this community participation has given a big boost to the efforts of the Punjab government in controlling this drug problem as on today we have more than six lakh people who have registered themselves as DAPOs to work voluntarily to control this problem now what is a DAPO program I briefly tell you the DAPO is basically he is supposed to do five duties he has to find time and voluntarily do work first thing he works in his own mohalla or ward wherever the street where he lives he knows the people in that area so he first identifies who are the who are the drug addicts and then he motivates them and their families to go and avail the free treatment even being given by the Punjab government the second duty is he identifies the vulnerable people in that area vulnerable people could be if an addict is there in a family his siblings could be vulnerable his friends could be vulnerable so he identifies those vulnerable people and makes them aware he you stay away from the drugs the third duty which he performs is spread he spreads awareness about the drugs and their ill effects the fourth duty is he promotes positive activities in his area to veen the people away from negative habits and then put them on the positive side like promoting sports promoting cultural activities that kind of stuff the fifth and last duty which does is vigilance and security vigilance is if some new person is coming to his area who is trying to peddle drugs or something so he immediately informs the law enforcement agencies and security is he gives his cooperation in what we call in Punjab the decree para or the village defense companies so these are the five duties which a DAPO is supposed to perform now how do we implement this DAPO program we have a state state level apex committee which oversees this DAPO program and in every district there is what is called a district mission team headed by the DC or the collector and the district SP the civil surgeon the district education officer the district sports officer they are all members of this district mission team similarly in every subdivision there is a subdivision mission team the SDM the DSP the subdivision officer they are all part of this subdivision mission team and before this and the subdivision mission team constitutes a cluster coordinator for every 15 to 20 villages cluster coordinates coordinates coordinates this DAPO program and in every village we have constituted what is called the Nasha Roku Nigran committee I mean I'm telling this model because if most of the states and there was a UNODC conference many of the countries had participated and they had in fact taken this model to their countries to adapt them to the local conditions and then probably implement them in their countries so maybe you also can understand this model and if anybody wants to have more details they can contact us so the Nasha Roku Nigran committee is constituted in every village with village serpents the village development officer the patwari the police officer they are all part of this Nasha Roku Nigran committee so this is the DAPO program where there is a structure in place every level monitors what the level below it is doing and the DAPOs are encouraged and motivated to contribute their own time and effort in controlling this problem it is a community participation based model and the next program is the Badi program Badi program is basically aimed at students of the schools colleges and universities in the state because they are the most vulnerable people in getting addicted to drugs because of peer pressure or any other to get that high in that that age group is a very vulnerable age group so Badi program is basically for the schools colleges and the university state Badi program means there is a Badi group of at most five students in every class this Badi program the Badi group is formed by the class teacher or the senior most lecturer in that college and the class teacher is called the senior buddy once the buddy group is formed the buddy group has we have time slots allotted every week as well as every month the students are made aware of the ill effects of drugs and they are made aware of basically five questions what are drugs and their ill effects these are the five questions first what are drugs and their ill effects second who is a buddy and what is a buddy group third what how to say no to drugs fourth if you observe any kinds of drug abuse in your buddy then what are the signs of drug abuse and fifth question is if you observe any signs of drug abuse then what do you do about it so these five questions are made to be understood by these students and then they are given the requisite skills and the behavioral patterns they are trained to develop these skills and behavioral patterns to stay away from drugs and to develop these skills we have this kabp model knowledge attitude behavior and practice so this kabp model is adopted to develop these skills in the students this is the buddy program and we have about 37 lakh students in Punjab in all government schools they have all been made into buddy groups the buddy program has also been a big success every school government school and most of the private schools have already come out to board so it is the Punjab model of EDP strategy it's a very comprehensive and a long-term model it is not just the enforcement part it includes the prevention also as well as treatment of the drug abuse distance so this model in fact there was a regional conference of asia in pochi where this model was presented and the other states also had been speedy so these are the basic the efforts done by Punjab government so far and the Nashaab Nashaab Bharat program which ministry of social justice and empowerment is going to launch from 15th august this year they had in fact discussed a lot of times with the stf the models which have been adopted in panya and they had combined the best points of these programs and then they are going to launch this Nashaab Bharat program from 15th august this year so this is the brief outline of the panya government efforts if anyone has any questions and we are open for taking questions so the insights given by you quite insightful for the purpose that invariably one feels that the government as we see sometimes the media is not projecting in the right perspective or we also carry the image that the drug is on the rise and there are no effects but after your insights having been given to us the thought process not only on this platform but watching those on the facebook or otherwise also with the flux of time they would appreciate the fact that there is a concrete effort taken by the Punjab government and under your ag's we are quite sacrosanct that Urta Punjab will be actually flying in the right sense in the right colors in the right shape now we have certain questions being posted on the chat box invariably they are on the legal perspective and if there are other questions also then we will anybody on the speakers can give the insights this is for Mr. Biljinder quantity of sample to be taken somebody asked 5 grams in respect of all narcotic drugs and psychopulmonary substances except opium ganja and charrus she shows she shows her 24 grams yes for opium ganja and charrus this is referring in normal trial pre-trial dispose of the truck can it be included under the modambal and vile trial is continuing then what will be seen through the witness Mr. Biljinder this is by Abit Khan so first pre-trial pre-trial disposal of case properties concerns now after the 1989 notification coupled with 2015 notification pre-trial disposal is being conducted the act was also amended in 2014 in this regard so therefore once the inventory is prepared and certified by the judicial budget straight in terms of 52 a of the act then straight away the bulk property goes to the drug disposal committee from where it can be disposed of bring the pre-trial and the primary evidence of inventory which is certified will remain valid throughout the trial this question is by Sunny he says what are the pre-trial and post-trial laws with respect to bail in NDPS I go a step further are the parameters invariably the same or there are some distinct uh distinct fishing facts between the two now so far as the bail is concerned the act is quite stringent in so far as the offences involving commercial quantities concerns plus section 19, 27, etc so there there are additional restriction imposed by the act itself before a bail is granted by the judicial courts less than commercial quantity there is no such a restriction so therefore the common parameters which are available in case of other cases would be applicable in respect of those cases but in respect of commercial quantity we have two stringent parameters apart from protest to the public prosecutor that there is a ground to believe that he's not guilty of the offense and if he's released on bail he would not be indulging in the same kind of activities so for that we have to see the nature of the evidence collected by the investigating agency like the search and seizure proceedings were faulty then that is one ground on which the court can form a prima facie opinion that this uh he's not guilty of the offense so then obviously the bail can be extended to the accused in that situation now so far as the post trial are concerned which relates to suspension of sentences now the act bars the application of section 39 CRPC in such cases but the apex court has held that so far as the appellate court power to suspend the sentence of the convicted is concerned it still has the power that can't be taken away by the act therefore suspension of sentence is meant application is maintainable one it is always subject to the restriction imposed by the section 37 of the act so even in 389 application these restrictions would be applicable this question one question which invariably as lawyers we all have been discussing we will ask Mr Chandrasekhar to give the insight so what is your take it sometimes it's felt that there are large number of false implantation of the cases Mr Chandrasekhar and Mr Jiswal this is the question upon you that sometimes large number of people feel that there is an implantation of the plantation of the case so how do you firstly sensitize the police down the line that they should not plant false cases because some cases are found to be planted or let's assume I go a step further there are certain instances wherein it says that the accused is equated on the ground there was some technical defect what are the steps taken by the police to sensitize the officials and the officers to the effect that they take the effective steps which are the legal safeguards you know in NDPS act it's a very stringent provisions for even for an investigating officer if he is found if he is found planting for registering false case against anyone and the provision of punishment it's a the same punishment is awarded to such kind of officers first thing second thing there are so many checks in this NDPS act it's a very very technical act and the police it's like a police is a complainant in all the cases so I simply deny of this charge that police plants anyone in this NDPS act so there is a no questions of planting anyone yes somehow sometimes we definitely I mean see some procedural lapses procedural lapses you know it's always I mean subject to giving a continuous training and the amount of and the number of NDPS cases we have it's and the number of IOs we have it's it's like if you see the ratio of IO and the cases it's a very very high so in that way we definitely I mean that is the reason our conviction rate is not to that mark it's almost 64 percent but we are making all I mean the possible efforts to train our IOs and wherever we we find any even procedural laps we go for departmental action and be even beyond that thank you thank you sir sir this is a recommendation by Azad Singh I can ask from all three of you since you are on the police side plus we can also take the insights from Mr. Biljinder it says in most of the NDPS cases recovery is shown in the presence of a police witness during the trial which is solely hearsay in evidence can we have a mandatory provisions for submitting electronic evidence such as CDR of police as well as the queue so that there is transparency in the recovery and arresting the procedure Mr. Vikas yes is this question to me it's a common question I've said to all four let dr. Kostam answer this because probably it pertains to the investigating agency yes so he's in a position to answer it uh you see it's not exclusive to police to this act alone you know the problem of getting police witnesses is actually there in every aspect of the criminal law it's only specific to the victims of continent and maybe wherever the British law was actually enacted in the criminal procedure court was there where the police officers are still so much suspect that you don't believe and you require actually witnesses to be there and obviously I mean all said and done our judicial process does take time and does require a lot of effort for the person to sort of give time energy and uh join the process on different occasions so once he has to join it's not over at the time of just being witness so he has to be continuously involved and then he has to go and oppose and then he's also threatened by all these kind of characters who are into many of them are into abnice crime particularly in Himachal Pradesh I have examples where people had been uh whoever were the witnesses will take money and will turn over and then say okay we our signatures are all taken on blank papers and things and so I mean that's definitely a challenge uh and people all said and done they won't like to be part of giving testimony against any kind of organized crime or criminal definitely they fear for their life and our witness protection is not as good that I mean we sometimes our ios could be registering maybe 20 cases over a period of 15 20 days and then if one of the witness wants to go and say okay now give me protection so and you we will definitely go and try and rein in the person anytime it becomes difficult and definitely there is a challenge that people don't want to come and join as a different witness so police witnesses at least they fill up for some expect some of them are present there but I mean as part of the training of the agency it is our endeavor that they should have other evidences supporting evidence if they have cctv footages they should uh say if they have footages or uh toll bills they should put it any any kind of evidence which can sort of prove and support their cases actually welcome but this is actually a challenge which the law has to see and it's not even uh otherwise in the IPC crimes it's not NDPS alone that this challenge is there thank you Dr. Kaushal sir one thing uh one person has suggested and asked also that has become the law on the Facebook he says why there is invariably a stereotype language used in the FIR under the NDPS act we are unmuting uh Mr. B. Chandrasekhar and Mr. Jiswala also that kindly unmute yourself from that side yes sir yeah I would like to respond to this question yes sir see uh when we register an FIR it is not that key we get a new situation in every uh uh case okay it is more or less the same the recovery is made it is uh it is either uh chance recovery or it is recovery on FIR information and one cannot we have only two pockets when we are wearing clothes one there is a shirt pocket there is there are two pants uh trouser pockets okay so and the and the socks or there is a bag or there is a suitcase outside this one cannot recover from uh hava or we cannot do magic that we are recovering from some other place okay so that is why the recovery is more or less from the same place from the same accused person whoever is carrying the uh caught the bag and if you you must be reading about the recoveries in the airports also there they hide it in different places in the suitcases in their socks in their shoes holes in their body cavities also so the recovery by the police is normally this only so if you are talking about that the recovery is being made from the same naka or something that is where the police works the police now we cannot just go and uh raid houses and then start recovering drugs so this is this is the practical aspect of it if somebody says that there is a stereotype of FIR that is where we actually recover the drugs from and the second thing I wanted to add to what costum has already said the witness part uh the witnesses are basically uh we it is very difficult for people to be associated as independent witnesses because of because of the delay in judicial processes the number of hearings they got to attend nobody nobody and threat from these drug traffickers and the police witness is as credible as any independent witnesses in the eyes of law they see the other evidence the judiciary also sees what is the supporting evidence and then they find whether the police witness is critical or not police witness no law has ever said that police witness is not critical that is why the practical aspect is the public doesn't want to associate with us when we recover these drugs that is why we we have to most of the times it is in front of the police witness only the recovery is made and and one more point if uh if the if people don't believe in the credibility of the police then get the logic or it is totally being unfair to the police department why do you suspect a policeman when he's recovering drugs I mean is it there's nothing like lactation the because we have been getting into these kind of uh credibility issues only the drug problem has uh grown so much and no accused claims that you know the recovery was not made from me the police has planted me that kind of stuff so I think we have to take a broader perspective of what is the social label what is the problem what is the law and then based on that law no law is being violated no court has said no law has said that police witness has no credibility and if recovery is made in front of the policeman that is not at this no that is why we have to go by what is the practical aspect what is the legal aspect as well as what is the societal interest all laws are made to serve the interests of the society not to serve the interests of an individual so the point is well taken because uh invariably if the police would not have acted and in that eventuality we are quite sure that the situation in the drugs would have been worse but it is only because of the efforts of the police that the drugs which was on the high they have come down and it's quite controllable I will take last two questions from Mr. Biljinder they are on legal aspects is it it is by Sunny it says whether the non-compliance of section 15 that the NDPS act is it fatal for the prosecution sorry because I couldn't get it probably it says whether the non-compliance of section 50 of NDPS act is fatal for prosecution nowadays yes any recovery effected in contravention of section 50 the evidence is not admissible so therefore if apart from that search they have any other independent evidence then it can stand otherwise the case falls okay this is by Aruna Aruna Reddy from Telangana she says as to whether in even in quantity of 51 kg of dry drugs can court grant bails on humanitarian grounds or there are different parameters Mr. Biljinder are you able to hear me no I was not able to hear you can you repeat Aruna asks from Telangana on the facebook even in the quantity of 51 kg of dry drugs can court grant bail on humanitarian grounds is it audible Mr. Biljinder yes now it is audible should I repeat the question or is it fine should I repeat the question yes yes yes Aruna Reddy asked as to whether in quantity of 51 kg of dry drug can court grant bail on humanitarian grounds again I'm missing the question whether bail can be granted on humanitarian grounds even if it is a commercial commercial quantity sorry I was not able to take the operative part of the question whether it is 51 kg drug then then a dry drug can court grant bail on humanitarian grounds no this is not a ground to grant the bail under the act and there is no such ground or parameter like humanitarian ground though he can get the interim bail like suppose his father is deceased he want to go there for to perform the last rights then in such cases an interim bail for a one day like this can be granted but this this is totally an entirely different parameter but then the bail will not be granted a regular bail will not be granted on this ground that is humanitarian grounds okay I think we should yield till 5.30 but we have already run out of time because there were a lot of questions and the insights not only from the Mr. B. Chandrasekhar then Mr. Jiswal then Dr. Kausup Sharma and Mr. Biljinder the the way the time flew it was never realized and before we part I would like to ask Dr. Kausup because I subsequently realized that he had issues with COVID-19 what is the situation like because one who suffers they say the wearer knows where the shoe pinches the most so we'd like to ask you lives that what is the situation and what are the precautions in abundance what one can take thank you Vikas for your concern definitely when I started to get a little bit of fever on so it's now 8 so it was last Tuesday I had a little fever of 100 degrees and I immediately isolated myself and spoke to the SMO and then he prescribed some antibiotics and said maybe probably some auto-infection it might just go away in two days and I realized on body ache and muscle ache and still it was not so feeling so good my nasal area was also a little bit congested so I went for a test on Friday as advised and Friday evening late I received the test report that I'm doing and a lot of people at work with me and around me including my staff and driver's thanks which became a challenge but eventually all of them got tested and yesterday we got results of 50 of them and one accounts of the rest of the all we had to get tested because I had to get tested that is one of the important things that we are not feeling very pleased because all of us could have just got tested and there could have been involvement of many other people second that you need to definitely drink a lot of water and add salt and maybe some other electrolytes to it because when you keep on drinking water you don't realize that there's so much of water you're drinking but it's creating electrolyte imbalance also so this is one challenge and since you're drinking hot water all the time it is it creates lots and lots of drenching sweats so that is one challenge how to sort of deal with it eventually paracetamol is one what sort of helps you because if you're having this body ache muscle ache which is not a very common symptom otherwise people don't usually have this more common is maybe a mild cough and dry cough with a little bit of fever and some muscle ache sometimes a abdominal upset so these could be the more common symptoms of COVID but any kind of chest involvement is very sort of serious issue I'm still monitoring my sp o2 levels continuously and I have to walk about six minutes and then check it if there is a long compromise or not but eventually I'm sort of now more stable I'm not I'm off most of the medicines except vitamin c a zinc supplement called Zincovet and a B complex so that is where and I'm using some kind of Ayurvedic supplement like I just take a Tulsi leave along with some ginger and a little bit of honey and keep it in my mouth maybe suck a little bit of clove or not twice so that is how I'm managed and seemingly okay now because I also wish him a good health and speedy recovery in fact why I asked dr. Kostav was first was that we wish him we are quite grateful to him that despite being tested positive within eight days he's back to business it gives a sense of confidence to the person let's assume there's some he's also having some symptoms that it's not that this thing you can always rise and do well this is what dr. Kostav has shown to us that's quite encouraging and heartening to know that one can be back to business within seven eight days because invariably we are all tense even at the fear that somebody in and around the vicinity is tested that thank you for accepting our invite and giving me the sites on despite these testing times and thank you to dr. Mr. B. Chandrasekhar and Mr. R. K. Jaswal to give the insights what we have as they say there are always three sides of any stories yours yours is and what people actually think over and when minister biljinder also gave the insights on the judicial perspective so it became according to us on this platform a vital combination since we had the perspective on the judicial as well as on the executive side so on behalf of beyond law CLC and all those participants who have watched us on the facebook as well as on the this platform we are thankful to all the four participants before we park for today tomorrow we are starting a series of onboarding this agenda justice and tomorrow we will be having three speakers justice MSR former Chief Justice of Bombay Justice Charlie Falsakar Joshi former Judge of Bombay High Court and Justice Roshan Dalvi former Judge of the Bombay High Court do stay connected with us at 4 p.m. tomorrow as usual with yet another webinar on the perspectives of law do stay connected and those who have joined us stay safe stay healthy and be happy and once again to all the four speakers with as in law we say a common order a common thank you to all four of you and we are all actually blessed to have the insights during these testing times thank you everyone thank you thank you